touring the damage this morning, president obama heading to new jersey to see the destruction for himself. alongside him will be governor chris christie. the election just six days away. and sandy unfortunately is not done yet. the superstorm is currently over pennsylvania, heading towards canada. cnn covering the story like no other network. rob marciano reporting for us, deb feyerick in new york, sandra endo and brian todd from new jersey and dan lothian is at the white house. wednesday, october 31st, "starting point" begins right now. welcome back, everybody, our starting point is breaking news this morning in regents point, queens where we've soon showing you some of these pictures yesterday, that massive fire that burned 80 homes to the ground. when sandy hit new york city. cnn crew on the scene is reporting to us a strong smell of methane gas. a utility pole spontaneously

burst into flames earlier this morning. officials are now assessing whether the gas levels there are excessively high in this neighborhood, and that could force those fire crews to evacuate. right now, 6.6 million people still without electricity across 15 states, and washington, d.c. nearly 2 million of them are here in new york where flooded subways has transportation at a virtual standstill. not to mention all the property damage and destruction, including those 80 homes that were consumed by that fire in queens. recovery from superstorm sandy could be as mayor michael bloomberg is calling it, a massive, a mammoth job. meteorologist rob marciano is in chelsea, new york, this morning with the latest on the damage there. rob, good morning. >> good morning, soledad. well, some of the damage behind me, one of a few buildings that were ripped off. nobody hurt miraculously. lower manhattan is still in the dark. day two now and it could be several more before it's all said and done. the estimates are between 2 and

4 days before places south basically of about 30th street will be back online. you go outside of the city and up towards westchester county could be as much as ten days. just down the street from us the con ed headquarters, yesterday we chased down the incident commander there up in the war room or situation room as they call it. we got his thoughts on the storm in general, and the system that he has to supervise. >> substations are only part of the problem. we had the luxury of an underground network in manhattan. there are no poles. no wires. very reliable. most reliable system in the country. but it's not designed to mixed with salt water. sea water. so that's something we're going to have to look at. especially if these things start happening more frequently. >> so the substation that pretty much controls all lower manhattan is on 14th and 1st avenue. so that got flooded. it was build to withstand a 12.6

foot storm surge, that would be histor historic. that's what we're dealing with. there've been several people coming in across our area without power. you have been without power for a couple of days. you're going to go to work today. you're going to walk. how many blocks? >> walking, about 40 blocks to get to work. been without power since monday night. spent all of yesterday just trying to get uptown to where they do have electricity to buy food, batteries, got a pizza to bring home. >> people go without power outside of new york all the time. but is this different in new york for some reason, elevators in the buildings, for one. how are you and your neighbors reacting to this in general? >> i mean, we are lucky in that we are on the second floor. so it's not too big a walk up. and you know, you just try to get by. for me, kind of the scary thing was seeing the side of this building fall down.

we saw the pictures monday night while the storm was still going on. so that was a little scary. but yeah, you get your supplies to make do with what you have and you hunker down. that's what we've been doing. >> trying to get back to normal. good luck. that's the message. yesterday was kind of a, you know, a bit of a shock, now we're getting to recovery and obviously the message is try to get back to normal as much as you can. with the infrastructure shut down, with electricity out and mass transit still, you know, crippled, it's going to be a problem. isn't it? >> yeah, it's hard to say get back to normal. thanks, rob. appreciate that. president obama is going to be touring storm-ravaged new jersey today along with governor chris christie. they're both getting an eyeful in hoboken across the river from manhattan they've called in the national guard to assist with evacuations there. in bergen county a breach left hundreds of homes submerged. about 1,000 people have already been rescued. more could be trapped. and in the atlantic city area,

where sandy made landfall, entire neighborhoods are now buried in sand and debris. sandra endo is live for us in atlantic city this morning. good morning, sandra. >> good morning, soledad. the rescue and recovery effort is under way here in atlantic city. we're on a main street here in atlantic city. several blocks from the waterfront of this bayside community, and to give you an idea of just how far that flooding was in effect here, look at this kayak that was washed ashore right here on this main drag. and also take a look at this. this is a small houseboat that was ripped, torn apart from the pier. you could see it was tied on to a piling right here and this was basically washed ashore, and is stuck in the middle of this intersection. and this is the kind of damage that president obama will see firsthand when he comes here later this afternoon. he will also talk to first responders here. and victims of this storm. as you mentioned, soledad, he will be joined by a republican

mitt romney supporter, actually, governor chris christie. and the governor said this is not about politics. this is time to get new jersey back on its feet. six people died here. 2.6 million people lost power because of this storm. president obama took three days off of the campaign trail because of the storm, and now he really has to straddle that fine line of coming here to console families, to look at all this devastation, while trying not to make it look overtly like a photo-op. so certainly it will be interesting to hear what he has to say, and that image of him with republican governor chris christie later here this afternoon. soledad? >> i have to imagine both will say this is not the time for politics, this is a time for rescuing those who need to be rescued and rebuilding those who lost everything. thank you, sandra. we're going to be talking with newark, new jersey mayor cory booker. a look at some of the other stories making news. >> breaking news this morning. these are pictures you're going

to be looking at of fires burning on that barrier island. fire crews working to reach the island to put out the fire. don't have any retails yet on how it started. you'll want to stay with cnn for all the breaking details on this story. again they're having a hard time getting there. 12 tons, 250,000 pounds still dangling. you're looking at live pictures in new york city. it could take weeks to secure this huge crane boom left dangling by sandy. and the plan may involve getting a new crane up there, in order to secure it. this you're looking at here is video of the moment the boom collapsed. there it goes. and when asked how secure it is right now mayor michael bloomberg responded, nobody knows. reassuring. new york city police airlifting six people off their rooftops in staten island to safety. five adults and one child were stranded by rising floodwaters. the helicopter used in the rescue is named 23, in honor of

the 23 nypd officers who died on september 11th. six days now until election day and new polling out this morning from three critical battleground states, the latest cbs/"new york times"/quinnipiac poll has the president with a five-point lead in ohio, with virginia and florida much higher but also ever so slightly in the president's favor. a new cnn poll of polls shows mitt romney holding a one-point advantage over the president nationally. the romney campaign hits the reset button today after being idled by superstorm sandy briefly. the republican challenger makes three campaign stops, all in florida, attending rallies at tampa, coral gables and jacksonville. his campaign was buoyed by an endorsement from the telegraph in nashua, new hampshire. the editorial board writes we are confident romney is the candidate who would tackle 9 serious issues facing this nation starting with jobs, the economy and the debt. in the end we couldn't say the same about the president. that paper endorse ed barack oba

in 2008. and we're getting late word that mitt romney and paul ryan will kick off a four-day tour starting on friday. they'll be joined by their wimps and some 100 other surrogates will be standing out around the country, condoleezza rice, bobby jindal and senator marco rubio of florida. >> talk about a final push. >> we guarantee it for barack obama, too, we just don't have the details yet. and tuesday is election night. finally you will want to join cnn's live coverage of election night in america beginning at 6:00 p.m. eastern time. it's upon us. next tuesday night. >> in the dark with candles. hopefully not. back to our starting point this morning. states from north carolina are still dealing with power outages from superstorm sandy. cory booker has been out on the streets of newark, new jersey, helping residents there. also taking requests. he joins us by phone now. what do you think the biggest

problem is in your state? is it power outages? >> well, definitely the power outages. we're starting to get back to many residents but we still have tens of thousands of people without power. that poses a lot of challenges. we've had some carbon monoxide problems. unfortunately, fire. firefighters doing a lot of work right now in power outage related incidents. and then you have people who rely on power for medication refrigeration, for medical devices, elderly trapped in high rises who really can't get down ten, 15-plus flights of stairs. so we've been scanning out around the city doing our best to service people, from delivering hot meals, to just keeping our medical personnel up and down in high rises, checking in on people, transporting people who need it. but this is going to be, you

know, difficult days ahead as the power slowly gets restored. >> we've been looking at pictures while you've been talking from not only newark but cities and towns around newark where they've had massive damage. you can see seaside where there's tons of sand in people's homes. the flooding that's taking place. really, new jersey has been hit very, very hard. how many folks do you have still in shelters? >> well, you know, first of all, i just want to say that you know, as i go around the city and my sentiments are the same, the sections of new jersey were hit so much harder than newark. really a devastating impact on entire neighborhoods, towns, displacing thousands. hundreds and hundreds of thousands without power. so our hearts and prayers are with our fellow new jerseyans as they deal with this difficult time. i've been in and out of our shelters a lot the last 24 hours. we've had hundreds of people

coming in and going out. tonight we still have in our main shelter between 100 and 200 people. it's going to be a challenging time. we know we have difficulties ahead in newark. upstate right now is the worst crisis we've seen in a long time and all of us here are just praying as the challenges continue that families and communities are able to pull through. we just faced a very, very strong storm. i know here in the state of new jersey we are strong. >> many politicians, frankly, don't really want to talk about politics at this time. because you've got citizens you're trying to help or rescue in some cases. but i want to ask you a political question, talking about the new jersey governor chris christie who's been praising the president for his response to to helping out in new jersey. play a little bit about what governor christie told me yesterday and ask a question on the other side. >> i have to say, soledad, right

now i'm much more concerned about preventing any other loss of life, getting people to safe places, and then we'll worry about the election. the election will take care of itself. i spoke to the president three times yesterday. he's been incredibly supportive and helpful to our state and not once did he bring up the election. >> you know governor christie has, you know, i don't need to tell you this, he's sort of i call it as i see it kind of guy. many people have found this surprising. do you find that surprising? >> not at all. we are in a state of crisis all across this state. and you know, when you're in a crisis, you don't stop and ask your fellow new jerseyan, your first responder, you don't ask if they're republican or democrat, you don't ask them how they choose to pray to their god you just pull to the and do what's necessary. and when it comes to responders, we advocate in new jersey, federal, state, county and local people all working to the, and let's call it as it is. president obama has been really hands-on in this. the governor's heard from him numerous times. i've been on calls with him

numerous times. he's taking a personal interest. he's been reaching out to the head of pse&g talking directly to that ceo, so he's been doing an incredible job, cutting through red tape, connecting directly to those affected. and i saw it late last night in one of our public housing authorities, the floods, power outages, the challenges, looked him in the eye and let them know that the president -- i talked directly to the president. he has a direct concern about what is happening right here on the ground. so this isn't politics. right now this is just people, human beings, facing human tragedy, and pulling to the to do something. >> mayor cory booker joining us this morning by phone. thank you mr. mayor. appreciate your time. good luck with all the cleanup, not only in your city. still ahead this morning going to talk about these homes that were burned to the ground. this is the daily news this morning. take a look at this picture. look at this. it's a little tough to see but these are homes that have been

burned. this entire swath in queens, new york. we're going to talk to a man that lost the house he lived in for 35 years in this deaf stating fire that consumed breezy point queens. and the fury of superstorm sandy. you may not believe your eyes when you see what happened to this tree. that's ahead. a look at what's coming up in business news. >> until sandy hit it had been 100 years since the new york stock exchange was closed for two days because of weather. 1888 the blizzard back then. what does today have in store? markets open today.

the wheels of progress haven't been very active lately. but because of business people like you, things are beginning to get rolling. and regions is here to help. making it easier with the expertise and service to keep those wheels turning. from business loans to cash management, we want to be your partner moving forward. so switch to regions. and let's get going. together. check out the latest collection of snacks from lean cuisine. creamy spinach artichoke dip, crispy garlic chicken spring rolls. they're this season's must-have accessory. lean cuisine. be culinary chic.

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join the millions of members who've chosen an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. go long. welcome back to "starting point." finally u.s. financial markets will reopen today after being closed for two days from hurricane sandy. u.s. stock futures are trading

higher this morning. new york city mayor michael bloomberg will ring the opening bell at the stock exchange today. most big banks have waived their fees for customers affected by sandy. all the banks shown here have waived some fees, including overdraft fees, late fees on loans and also fees for using out-of-network atm machines. which just seems natural because you don't want people trudging around someplace out of the way to try to get money out of banks. >> absolutely. christine, thank you. new developments to tell you about in breezy point, queens, that's where a massive fire, we showed you the pictures yesterday morning, destroyed 80 homes. maybe more. hurricane sandy was bearing down on that city. now there's a strong smell of gas in the area. utility poles apparently spontaneously burst into flames this morning. deb feyerick is live in the area with the very latest for us. deb, how is it this morning? >> soledad, still, everything, if you take a look just past me here. as you say there was a strong smell of gas. firefighters were here trying to

figure out whether it was some sort of methane leak, an open gas pipe or whether, in fact the problem here is that there are a lot of septic tanks and that also creates methane. firefighters have been putting out these sort of small fires that have spontaneously been erupting. they were doing that for the most part all day yesterday. and you know, when we look at this area, this, we're talking about really 80 to 100 homes. an entire community where everyone knew each other, where, in fact, the way you would cool down your houses in the summer was simply to keep your doors and windows open so that the breeze would pass from house to house. this place called breezy. everybody goes oh, breezy, breezy. it's such a great summer community. houses are going to rebuild. that was the question everyone was asking this morning. it's not just the houses that were on fire, soledad. you know, over here just to give you perspective. this is an incredibly heavy planter, can't even budget, and the water was above these cars. so you've got car damage. you've got home damage. even the ones along the bay,

completely destroyed. completely devastated. right now, they're keeping an eye on the situation. they're going to be having search and rescue teams just to make sure that nobody's unaccounted for, soledad. >> deb feyerick for us in breezy point, queens. looks just so eerie behind you, deb. just awful. >> it really does. >> want to get right to mike long, he lost his home in that very fire. he's the chairman of new york's conservative party joining us by phone. i have to say mr. long, really, the pictures are just so devastating. i'm showing pictures of the actual fire when it was under way, burning out of control, firefighters couldn't even get close because of all the water that was in the area. i was stunned to hear that nobody died in this fire. i mean, there's a glimmer of good news, it's that. >> well, if there's anything like i've had my home, as many other people did, we had our homes for 35 years, fond memories, great place to raise a family and have summer fun, but

the most paimportant part there was no fat talties which is really amazing. i'm sort of blessed, people there, get them all out. many of them listened, not everybody, but many of them listened and evacuated when the community asked everyone to get out with what was coming. >> we're showing pictures of what it looks like this morning and people have described this as if a bomb was dropped on the area. i think that's a very apt description. how do you rebuild? i mean where do you -- where do you start from the devastation so bad? >> well you know, i'm going to be honest with you, it's hard for me to even wrap my arms around it. where do we begin? hard for me to wrap my arms around the fact that it happened. not having a dream, that your house disappeared. this is a community of great people, people that were really slowly affected and badly affected at 9/11. they lost a lot of loved ones in that community.

and they'll unite. they'll band together, and it's going to take some time. it's going to take quite some time. but i know that community will rise again, and become a great summer place again for families throughout new york. >> we are all rooting for you to rebuild. it's just heartbreaking to look at those pictures. mike long who lost his home. 35 years in that breezy point fire in queens. thank you for talking with us, sir. appreciate your time this morning. still ahead on "starting point," so what would you do if this happened to you? going to tell you about a father who describes the heart-pounding moments when his wife and newborn baby had to evacuate nyu laone medical center. yet it was not particularly chaotic. the nurses stepped in and stepped up. the orderlies evacuated people out of that hospital. that's straight ahead. c-max has a nice little trait,

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so they say a picture is worth a thousand words but that would be shortchanging this next piece of amazing video. watch as sandy changes the landscape of matthew's backyard in huntington, long island. >> there it goes. there it goes. >> going -- >> can you imagine watching this, filming this as it goes down? oh, my. you can only assume he was filming it from his house. but that is amazing video. >> what about his neighbors on the other side of the fence? >> one of the most striking images of hurricane sandy happened at a hospital in new york city. the nyu langone medical center

had to be evacuated after a backup generator failed. charles rosenbaum and his wife kim were in the middle of it all. their daughter alice was born sunday morning four weeks prematurely. they're all doing fine this morning. but the outage sure caught charles by surprise. >> we were up in my room, and on the 13th floor, when the power went out, the generators went on. it was about 7:00 p.m. and then shortly after that, one of the generators failed and the power on our side of the floor went out. >> i didn't hear a word he said. i'm looking at that beautiful baby girl's face. >> and, i was giving birth. >> talk about hard times. >> exactly. wow, amazing. the folks from the hospital talked about that evacuation and said that the staff was amazing. that it was very calm, orderly. the nurses were incredible helping the babies out of the nicu. >> 1,000 people involved in getting everybody out. >> we've got to take a break. still ahead on "starting point" we'll take a live look at the new fires that are now raging in

a new jersey town. we'll have more on what's happening. also today president obama is going to get an up close look at the devastation along the jersey shore. he'll be touring with new jersey governor chris christie. governor christie's been one of his harshest critics. [ female announcer ] you can make macaroni & cheese without freshly-made pasta. you could also cut corners by making it without 100% real cheddar cheese. but then...it wouldn't be stouffer's mac & cheese. just one of over 70 satisfying recipes for one from stouffer's.

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welcome back, everybody. we're following some breaking news this morning. massive fires have broken out in new jersey in an area that was already hard-hit by sandy. those are live pictures. it's the shore town of mantoloking. police in neighboring area say they are aware of the fire. it's impossible to get to. those who are reporting what they're seeing are seeing it

from quite a distance. they believe it's in the outgoing section and there are homes, but there are homes there. people in that area were told to evacuate ahead of sandy, but lots unknown at this point. it's unclear how many people are actually there. unclear how the fire started. and it's also unclear especially how much it's spread. it looks like a number of fires that are burning there from these pictures but it's really hard to tell. i'll obviously have more information as people are able to get in and more information, as well, as light comes up and we get a better sense of what's happening there. meanwhile today, president obama is going to get a close look at the devastation that was left behind by this superstorm sandy. in the atlantic city area, where sandy made landfall, pretty close to that, hundreds of homes remain buried now under sand and debris. hoboken, just across the river from manhattan, called in the national guard to assist with evacuations. bergen county, remember yesterday we were talking about that berm breach where maybe 1,000 people were affected and many of them, as you see in pictures here, had to be lifted

out of their home's second floors or even off rooftops. they think they've been able to pull out about 1,000 people but it's unclear how many more people need to be rescued. right now sandy has gone away but for everybody else who's in sandy's path, has not -- are feeling effects in it's hitting pennsylvania now then it's going to go through western new york and then it's going to head towards canada. want to get right to brian todd who is in moonachie, new jersey, this morning. we showed pictures from moonachie yesterday that berm breach. what's the latest from where you are, brian? >> soledad, they're getting some relief here because the water has receded from yesterday. 24 hours ago, it was a very severe crisis here, with the flooding just, you know, engulfing this section of moon okay ki and two adjoining towns, little ferry and carlstadt. people starting to come back to their homes today. we see people streaming back into the neighborhood. but there are hazards involved in doing that. you've got a downed power cable line here. this scene is repeated on street after street. people have to be very careful. a lot of them, a lot of these

lines are just barely visible. as we said the water is starting to recede. this whole street was flooded yesterday. people had to be rescued from this area. the water has receded. still fairly deep at the end of the street here but it has gone down a little bit since we were here earlier this morning. yesterday, very, very dramatic scene, water rescues, there were swift water rescue teams going house to house knocking on doors. as you mention, soledad, people getting plucked from the roofs of their houses. it was just incredible scene. officials here tell us that probably no fewer than 3,000 homes were either damaged or almost destroyed by that breach of the hackensack river at a berm not to far away from where i'm standing here. so they're just starting to recover. people filtering back into the neighborhoods now, soledad. today is a day to assess damage and it's going to be heartbreaking for thousands of people coming back. >> oh, god you have to imagine it will be. that's terrible. brian todd for us this morning. we mentioned just a few

moments ago that president obama was going to be joining new jersey governor chris christie. they're going to be surveying the hardest-hit areas hit by superstorm sandy. governor christie is one of mitt romney's top supporters. dan lothian is live in our d.c. bureau with more on that. >> good morning. some are looking at it as an odd pairing up of a critic of the president, embracing the president in this fashion. not only the president himself, but also the overall administration, governor christie saying that the obama administration acted very quickly in not only declaring the state of emergency for the state of new jersey, but also a disaster declaration. so he had a lot of kind words for the president. they will be joined, as we pointed out, together, getting a chance to see some of the damage up close, but also the president will be talking with residents there who have been affected by the hurricane, and also talk to first responders. what you're seeing from the white house is a real aggressive effort to show that the president is staying on top of this disaster.

releasing a couple of photographs of the president inside the situation room, getting briefings. overnight, i'm told by a white house official, the president got a number of briefings, and will get another briefing this morning, a briefing that's been described as, quote, substantial, and this follows a call that the president jumped on late last night, with some utilities executives where he told them that he -- his administration would cut through the red tape and make sure that they can get the resources that they need. and i'm told that as a result of that meeting these electric companies will be embedding a representative with fema in order to better coordinate the response. soledad? >> power outages a big problem here. dan lothian, thanks. john berman's got a look at some of the other stories making news today. police in virginia are looking for the source of three homemade bombs. investigators want to know who set off explosives outside two stafford county homes early

tuesday morning. the two incidents have been linked to a third explosion tuesday inside a house in fredricksburg. no injuries were reported. a guilty plea in arizona from a mexican man accused in the 2010 murder of u.s. border patrol agent brian perry. manuel osorio air ranous could be facing life in prison. the 36-year-old man said he got into a gun battle while he and four other armed men were looking for drug traffickers to rob. another california surfer attacked by a shark. the 25-year-old is fighting for his life after he was bitten in his chest and abdomen yesterday. a depp puttpy in eureka saying one of the wounds is a 14 inch gash. other surfers helped pull him out of the water and rush him to a hospital. less than a week ago another california surfer was killed in a shark attack off the coast of santa barbara. san francisco holding a parade today in honor of the san francisco giants.

this year's world series champions. remember they swept the tigers just a few days ago. seems like ages ago. up to 1 million fans were expected to help celebrate the giants sweep. parade kicks off at 11:00 this morning. it will end with a victory celebration at civic center plaza. congratulations to the giants. >> they look like the picture of tired but happy. >> lots to celebrate. our team this morning, governor george pataki is joining us. he's the form irgovernor of new york. ed smith is back, the editor in chief of buzz week. you lost power in the middle of the storm. >> data center flooded out. >> richard socarides is a writer for newyorker.com. homeless this morning, right? no power for you in the wake of the storm. >> no power. >> john berman as well. and let's talk a little bit about the impact from this storm, and, and what i thought was a great moment was not everybody agrees with me, but when mayor bloomberg goes to the

spanish, and now for those who speak espanol. >> his spanish sounded pretty good. >> technically excellent. but his accent -- he needs to work on that. >> you know what matters is the effort. >> really. >> i agree. >> i agree. >> twelve years -- >> are you -- >> i speak what is incomprehensible to any spaniard. >> at bloomberg level. >> and it really matters. >> i agree. i love it. >> even if he mangled the pronunciation or get the grammar wrong the fact that you're making the effort counts enormously. >> i think it does. >> governor pataki and bloomberg actually like studied spanish. it is not the glamorous thing to do as a politician. >> he worked very hard at it. he's done it since he's been mayor. it's knoll something he learned in school. i mean he made an effort to learn this while he's been mayor. >> let me ask you, we would do press conferences together, and then the tell mundo and univision would come after me in

spanish and myer bloomberg would stand there and look and i know his wheels were turning and say hey wait a second. >> i'm going to learn spanish. >> he is doing the right thing. >> here's my question, at some point this turned from a story about here's the devastation, here's the loss, here are the people we're still trying to rescue and help to looking back. at wham point you've got to say what went wrong and how do we make sure we don't lose generators for a major new york hospital, that you keep water interest getting into the subway system. do you think this storm was too big. >> we're not there yet. you're absolutely right at some point it's appropriate to figure out what went wrong and how do we prevent it from happening again. but first of all you have to get through the crisis. and listening to what you were talking about, people still at risk. fires breaking out in new jersey. still millions of people without power. and we thank god that the lights don't go out. if you're on the 18th floor of a building and there's no elevator that could be a health emergency. at this point all the effort has to be on public safety, and trying to restore power,

transportation, and the other essential needs of the people affected. a few weeks down the road, a month down the road, then it's important not just to say all right, let's recreate what was here. let's figure out how we can do it better to prevent it the next time. >> i think not just government officials need to learn a lot, soledad you and i were both in zone "a," the evacuation zone and everyone talked about the worst case scenario. one of the things they said was flooding. we could see the subways flood. we could see power go out here. and that's what ended up happening. next time we get these warnings people are going to listen much more closely. >> it was interesting that governor cuomo said that we should think about maybe building a levee in around parts of manhattan. i mean he said that, sounds like a pretty good idea. i know that new orleans, when this happened, that they took some -- they redid everything. >> and remember that's new orleans consistently getting hammered by hurricanes and that's not really what we experience here. last year and this year -- >> and new orleans is low -- >> when so much is at stake

here. i'm not suggesting that there's more at stake in new york than anywhere else. the stock exchange, the financial district. i mean, new york, parts of new york are the center of commerce for the whole world. i mean, you know the whole world depends to some extent on new york functioning. and today a lot of new york downtown is still functioning. >> massive public works project. $10 billion, things like that. the amount -- doesn't seem like there's a way -- >> in new orleans, they're massive because they have to be. and they're expensive because they have to be. this is a question we'll talk about later this morning. fema. what is the role of fema? do you pay for fema? fema is expensive. the cost has gone up. we'll talk about that a little bit and we'll talk as well about the election. six days away. what happens to that. ahead this morning. also ahead this morning going to talk a little bit more about the devastation left behind by the storms. take a look at this. airport turns into a lake basically. this is laguardia. laguardia airport. my husband was asking, trying to fly back, he said so when do you

think i'm going to be able to fly back into laguardia? i said let me send you a picture from twitter. that will answer it. all that and much more ahead. ♪ ♪ [ multiple sounds making melodic tune ] ♪ [ male announcer ] at northrop grumman, every innovation, every solution, comes together for a single purpose -- to make the world a safer place. that's the value of performance. northrop grumman.

welcome back to "starting point," everyone. gasoline at a real premium in new jersey this morning after the superstorm sandy strike. the asbury park press is printing the names of local gas stations that are open. getting reports of really long lines at the pump and that could continue for weeks, because the garden state's rail system is devastated and may not be back online for quite some time. halloween interrupted. cities and towns impacted by

superstorm sandy which downed free limbs and power lines postponed halloween trick-or-treating tonight. the greenwich halloween parade was postponed but mayor bloomberg says it may be rescheduled next week. the storm also wiping out halloween festivities at the white house. >> be careful, trick or treat -- kids really want to know this, trick-or-treating is still on. >> if you're watching, keep your bags on. >> new york laguardia airport remains closed due to flooding from hurricane turned superstorm sandy. the airport tarmac looks more like a lake after the storm hit. no word on when laguardia will reopen. it doesn't look like any time soon. it is one of three major airports here serving the new york area. both newark and jfk reopening today, though. so that is good news. maybe your husband can get home. >> he's going to head home. heading into jfk i'm told. still ahead this morning on "starting point," john mentioned planes grounded, people stranded. could be days before travel not just in new york, but around the nation, and internationally, will get back to normal.

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airport closures due to superstorm sandy, have a ripple effect nationwide. with the overall picture, good morning, richard quest. >> good morning. the news that newark is open, that just means that the faa has

technically reopened the airport. it does not mean that flights or anything like that -- if only for the fact that there are no planes there. of course, the airlines flew the planes out. now we'll have to go to the process of bringing them back in again. although you may see online that the airports are open, technically, that's just a logistical thing. reality, there's very little flying. so, for example, teterboro remains closed until lunchtime and laguardia also remains closed. jetblue planes positioning themselves up into kennedy for the official reopening, which they've place d at noon eastern time. those are planes coming in from the west and up from the south into kennedy. it will be some hours. in fact, it will be many hours before the flights get anything like back to normal. on those airports that are

reopening, if we talk about n newark, as i say, it's going to be hours before there's anything like -- we're not even seeing on that flight explorer, we're not even seeing flights going into newark. they're not even there yet unless they're positioned overnight. there's very little chance of anything normal taking place. we'll follow that up. laguardia airport remains closed and, you know, it's a sad case of the lights are on. but there's nobody home. at least in terms of passengers or aircraft. this is a live picture bringing to you of laguardia at the moment. you can still sort of see the water coming into laguardia there. that's the situation. if you're looking at other transitions from this morning, because if you can't get round, you may have thought, i can't go by air. i'll try to go by rail or by bus. new york, as you are aware,

remains closed on the mta for the transit. look at boston. it is now restored. washington has rail restored. rail restored in washington. in terms of long distance travel on the railways, amtrak, the rule with amtrak, soledad, seems to be south of new york, washington. everything seems to be picking back up again. north of washington and things picking up again. boston, new york, washington and very limited service elsewhere. once again, soledad, my fundamental message, it may say the sarpt open. but, please, there's virtually very little flying certainly so far at newark. >> you're just a bringer of doom and gloom. >> i'm sorry. i'm sorry. >> i know. i hear you. thank you, richard. president obama will get an up, close look at the

devastation cause bid sandy today. and by his side will be republican governor chris christie. woel talk about sandy and the impact, potentially, on election day. top of the hour, we'll hear from jen psaki with the obama campaign. back in just a moment. inspiration. great power. iconic design. exhilarating performance. [ race announcer ] audi once again has created le mans history! [ male announcer ] and once in a great while... all of the above. take your seat in the incomparable audi a8. the highest-ranked vehicle appeal among large premium cars by j.d. power and associates. ♪

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welcome back, everybody. 7 million people remain in the dark. at least 40 americans have been killed by sandy. fires are burning out of control in that state emergency crews can't get to them because of the hurricane damage. and desperate for help, thousands of people rescued from the floodwaters. many more, though, still need help, even though the waters are beginning to recede. many homes gone. a fire ripped through a quiet community in queens, new york,

is leaving nothing but this, what you're looking at, ashes. at a standstill this morning, new york city's subway system still shut down. could be days before northeast's transit systems could get back to normal. president obama is heading to new jersey and the destruction there with the election just six days away. and, unfortunately, sandy is not done yet. the superstorm currently is over the state of pennsylvania and heading toward canada. cnn has this storm and the aftermath covered like no other network. rob marciano and deb feyerick are covering new york for us, and sandra enco is in atlantic city. "starting point" begins right now. our "starting point" this morning is what you're looking at right there, cluster of fires breaking out in the new jersey shore town of mantoloking.

what you're looking at, they tell us, is the osbourne section of the barrier island. that's where the homes are. you can see homes in the shots. people were told to evacuate ahead of sandy. there's no word right now on how these numerous fires in this area, how they got started, how far they're spreading, how much damage there has been and even what's going to happen over the next few hours, if they're going to be able to get rescue workers in. our team joining us, governor george pataki, former governor of new york. ben smith, the editor in chief and richard socarides. upgrading that number since last night, 22 deaths in new york. 6.6 million people still have no power. about a third of that number is in new york where the flooded

subways have made it really hard to get around. look at these pictures. bus service is back, one bright spot, in limited fashion. people can expect long wait times if you're going to take a bus. lots of property damage to talk about. this is breezy point in queens. look at that. that is just stunning, the damage there. mayor bloomberg, new york city mayor bloomberg said it's going to be a mammoth job. >> it looks like a tornado, right? >> doesn't it? look at that. these pictures, it just -- i'm sure in person it looks even worse. rob marciano is in new york's chelsea neighborhood where the building right behind him collapsed. the front of it is gone. good morning, rob. >> reporter: good morning, soledad. yes, this has been a stop for many, a looky loo here in new york city, an extraordinary

site, for sure, during the height of the storm, the facade was ripped down. you can see inside an unusual site for sure. what's even more unusual is the drive down here from a lit up, uptown manhattan to an in the dark lower manhattan. an eerie sight. transportation is trying to get through. the fact remains they're in the dark. this system is underground mostly. substations above ground are only protected for 12.6 foot storm surge, which would be historic, but this was beyond historic at 13.8. we went up to their situation room, spoke with the incident commander. here is what he had to say about the storm. >> it was more -- it was sort of -- i never would have expected it. it's new york city. this is not florida or north carolina. i would never have expected to have two years in a row with this kind of damage, losses.

>> the expectation for lower manhatt manhattan, once they get things dried up, fixed up, two to four days before complete restoration happens here in the burroughs could be as much as 10 days. a lot of you have been without power outside of new york city. this is a different world. elevators that go up and down, people that are old or handicapped and can't go up and down stairs and then people that can't live without their cell phones, plugging their chargers into our truck. now starting to line up for mass transit which is limitedly getting back on track on a weekend schedule for the buses. i think we've been reporting that newark and jfk are open today but kennedy slow to get back on its feet. >> rob marciano for us, thank you, rob. president obama, governor christie put aside politics for a tour of storm-ravaged new jersey happening today. certainly will be getting an

eyeful because of the damage there. look at hoboken. national guard had to be brought in to help with evacuations. bergen county, we talked about this a lot yesterday, berm breach and hundreds of homes under water. thousands of people have already been rescued but there might be more people that need to be rescue rescued. atlantic city, where sandy made landfall, very close to that, neighborhoods buried under sand and debris. what's the latest from where you are, sandra? >> reporter: the rescue and recovery effort is certainly under way. this is one of the major arteries into atlantic city. cops have closed down this street and we've seen tepgss run high here, soledad. residents, trying to get through, trying to get to their homes, trying to assess the damage but being turned away. they're obviously upset. here is why. this is how high the floodwaters came. this is a houseboat that basically got washed ashore for several blocks. it's just parked here on this

street. you can see it was torn apart from the dock. here is a piling it was posted to. this is the type of damage president obama will be seeing firsthand from later this afternoon when he arrives here to see the damage. interestingly enough, the staunch republican governor here, governor chris christie is praising democrat president obama for his efforts. have a listen. >> this is the live lihood of te people in my state. and when the president does things that deserve praise, i will give him praise. and when the president does things that deserve scorn, i'll give him scorn. i think people know that about me. but i am not going to play politics with this issue. >> reporter: certainly politics are not at play here. it's all about trying to get new jersey back on its feet. six people died in this state. 2.6 million people lost power. certainly it's going to take days and weeks to make sure this

state gets back to normal, soledad. >> even years, i would guess there, sandra endo, camped out since sunday. thank you. really appreciate it. john berman has the other stories making news. >> 12-ton, 250,000 pounds, still dangling 90 stories up here in new york city. it could take weeks to secure this huge crane boom left da dangling by sandy. it may involve getting a new crane up there in order to secure it. let's take a look at the video the moment this boom collapsed. here it goes. when asked how secure it is right now -- you can see it falling right there, mayor michael bloomberg responded by saying, nobody knows. that's reassuring. air lifting six people off their rooftops to safety. five adults and one child were stranded by high floodwaters. named 23 in honor of the 23 nypd officers who died on 9/11.

the latest cbs/quinnipiac poll has the president holding on to a five-point lead in ohio. florida and virginia much, much tighter. nbc poll of polls shows mitt romney holding a one-point advantage over the president nationwide, however. mitt romney is back on the trail with three stops in florida, tampa, coral gables and jacksonville. he will be sending out about 100 surrogates through friday for a huge push. the editorial board in new hampshire writes we are confident that romney is the candidate who would tackle the soersz issues facing this nation, starting with jobs, the economy and the debt. in the end we couldn't say the same about the president. that is an about face. the telegraph endorsed then

senator obama in 2008. disney is taking over the star wars business, the company shelling out more than $4 billion to buy lucas film from star wars creator george lucas. this is really big but what got everyone's attention is the news of a star wars trilogy beginning with star wars vii. presumably this picks up after the ewoks. the emperor dies and we'll pick up with this new trilogy. >> i think it's awesome. >> it's basically good for the force. disney churns movies out and don't make terrible mistakes. >> it's good for the force unless the movies are like the first three. >> they don't make mistakes that bad. >> i'm happy about it. thank you, john. president obama heading to new jersey today. brand new polls that john was just mentioning from "the new

york times"/cbs quinnipiac polling, virtually tied in florida. look at virginia and in ohio, the president is holding a five-point lead on romney. jen psaki joins us. nice to talk to you. >> good morning, soledad. >> a lot of focus has been taken off the campaign trail as the president focuses on the devastation of superstorm sandy and governor romney, as well, not really campaigning. sort of dealing with the storm aftermath. are you worried when you see some of the those poll numbers, where you see virginia and florida neck and neck? >> the president is out there, doing exactly what the american people elected him to do, which is to manage the country in a state of crisis. for this week, that's hurricane sandy. you've seen him over the past couple of days hunker down in the white house, making calls to mayors and governors, getting briefed by his team. he will be touring the damage with governor christie today. this is a time where politics takes a backseat.

on the polls, this race is going to be close. we've always believed that. i will say we're leading or tied in virtually every battleground state. that's one of the reasons the romney team is so desperately looking for another pass to 270. i'm referring to what the president is doing, why we're not concerned athe all. he's focused on his job. >> i hear you. i'm just pointing it out. i want to ask you about concerns about election day. i understand people have said and a lot of elected officials have said it's not a time to talk about politics. election day is six days away. if you're talking about power outages in some states that would be very critical to the democrats, certainly pennsylvania is one, new jersey is another. how concerned are you about that? >> well, worry monitoring this day by day and hour by hour. that's how we've made decisions about the president's travel, where resources need to go. these decisions are really being made by the white house. at this point we're not engaging

in hypothetical theticcals. we have six days to go until the election. you heard the president say yesterday he a's not worried about election day. we have every confidence we can get voters out to the polls. people have been early voting in states across the country and we'll take this day by day and do what's necessary. >> michael brown, who i remember from my hurricane katrina days, used to run fema when katrina happened. he said this about what the president is doing. my guess is that he wants to gt ahead of it, he doesn't want to be accused of not getting on top of it, paying attention to it or playing politics in the middle of it. he went on to say thabout benghazi. what do you make of this? >> it's interesting coming from someone who has an abysmal record on handling emergencies. where i'm from, my family was

evacuated, are happy that the president jumped in and moved quickly in response to this storm. we don't take too much credence from somebody with a record like mr. brown. >> thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> interesting question to have about fema. reporters throwing questions at governor romney yesterday. they were asking him a number of times -- he wouldn't state -- do you think this is problematic for the governor? >> i don't think so at all. first of all, let me just respond to jen. she just blew off the criticism about benghazi. you listen to her saying in a crisis the president hunkered down in the white house, getting constant briefings, travel is being monitored hour by hour based on circumstances. think back to benghazi. when apparently we had real time video showing this attack and the next day the president goes off to las vegas to raise money, either he didn't know what had happened or he was mistaken or misleading the american people.

but it dntd matter enough for him to suspend the campaign. for jen to sit here and say with a straight face that politics is not playing into the president's decisions is just not the case. the president is doing the right thing. no question about it. to say that somehow this is a lofty president who always does the right thing in the faceative political choice, that's just not the history of this president. >> with all due respect, whenever politicians tell me it's not about politics, i almost never believe them, no matter who they are. >> with all due respect to the governor, i do think -- i do have a lot of respect for you, governor. >> well, thank you. >> i do think it's a little bit of a stretch to draw a connection between benghazi, the response there and the response here to this natural disaster. i mean, i think that if you contrast what mr. brown said, the former fema director.

>> it was a train wreck. >> clearly a train wreck and then the famous thing that president bush said to him, heck of a job, brownie, to what governor christie is now saying about the federal response, in this environment we can really see how much fema is needed. >> you're absolutely right. fema is needed. you're also right that there's a distinction between benghazi. the difference is fema's role is derivative. the governor calls fema in. they don't have any independent authority to go into new jersey or new york. in benghazi, there's only one person with the ability to lead us, and that was the president of the united states. now the president is reacting to requests from governors. and he's leading and doing the right thing. then when he was the sole person at the desk, making the decisions, he flies to las vegas. and i think that is outrageous. >> we have got to get to commercial break. this is an interesting discussion. >> want to talk more? >> we'll talk more about fema as

well. a lot of reporters have shouted questions to mitt romney. he hasn't said -- i think 14 times or so he has been asked and he's domged the question. i want to know if that will be problematic for him. we'll talk with bob menendez, who was touring hoboken. we'll have his take on the other side of the break. and look at this. that is going to be a mess and have a big impact, obviously, on folks who run those businesses. ♪ [ female announcer ] nature exists on the grandest scale... ♪ ...and in the tiniest details. ♪ and sometimes both. nature valley granola thins pack the big taste of granola and dark chocolate into one perfect square,

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it worked for me. [ male announcer ] ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. hoboken, new jersey, across the river from new york. 50,000 people on a square mile in hoboken, nearly half of them were flooded.

hobok hoboken's mayor is estimating a fifth of them could be trapped in their apartments and more than 10,000 are without power. president oba it's nice to see you, sir. thank you for talking with us. tell about the tour that you took of hoboken. how bad is the damage? >> hoboken has been hit really hard. they have large parts of the city under water. you have national guard now, thank god, helping to rescue people out of their homes. there's nowhere to go. there's a stench of gasoline in the water as well. so you have a real challenge to the city here. >> tell me a little bit about the flooding there. the mayor of hoboken is practically begging for the national guard. i'll play a little bit of what she said. >> i'm asking for the national

guard to come in. we are desperate for the national guard to come in. we need their specialized equipment to be able to get to our city streets to be able to safely get the people and evacuate those out of -- >> ask for the national guard. >> i've been asking them. there's a chain of command. we've been going through the process. >> what have you been hearing? >> they're coming. they're coming. they're coming. but they're not here. >> the national guard now is there. how would you assess the response to this terrible storm in that area? >> well, obviously, when you have the mobilization of a statewide impact that you have with so many parts of the state hit, but when i was here last night, the mayor let me know about the need for national guard. they came last night after we made some calls. they're here today. they're doing fantastic work and we just have to continue to work at recovering each and every day. and today hoboken residents, starting last night, are getting that relief.

>> taking that tour with the president and governor chris christie later today. thank you for your time. we certainly appreciate it. >> thank you. >> take a short break. we're back in a moment.

president obama will get a closer look at the result of san sandy's damage. will there be political fallout come election day? some of the littlest people displaced by the storm, the newborns in the nicu at the hospital in new york, dr. sanjay gupta will join us to talk about the effort to get them all to safety. that's straight ahead. rogaine? well, i'll admit it.

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>> welcome back, everybody. state of new jersey slowly transitioning to recovery mode in the aftermath of superstorm sandy. massive cluster of fires have been breaking out in the jersey shore town of montoloking. atlantic city, where sandy made landfall, or close to there, hundreds of homes are bury bid sand or debris. bergen county, a berm breached, left hundreds of homes submerged. 1,000 people have already been rescued. they're estimating more still

might be trapped. president obama will get a chance to see it firsthand today in just a few hours. he will be joining new jersey governor chris christie for a tour of the damage. the president is promising to cut through the red tape and get relief quickly to those who need it. dan lothian is live at the wit house for us. good morning, dan. >> reporter: the white house trying to make it very clear that the president is staying on top of the situation youf seen over the last couple of days. they've released photographs of the president involved in various briefings inside the white house situation room. he has been on video conference calls with his senior members of his emergency management team. also been on calls with governors and mayors in the impa impacted area. you heard jen psaki earlier talking with you, where she was saying that these actions by the president are just part of his job. that is correct, but clearly this white house realizes that

the optics and politics are very important, just a few days away from the election. you hear them use words such as substantial when describing a briefing of the president will be taking part later this morning. they also talk about aggressive in describing how the president is pushing the federal government to make sure that they meet any of the needs that they get from state and local officials as well. and so this is really sort of a big push by the white house to show that, yes, the president is dealing with the election, but also very much staying on top of this devastation. and the president, we expect, will be talking about when he heads to new jersey later today, will be talking about just sort of the overall effort by americans standing behind those who have been impacted by the storm but will be there to help them get back on their feet. soledad? >> dan lothian for us this morning from the white house. thanks, dan. house fire mostly out in

montoloking, new jersey. it's in that same place where a wall of water about five feet high came crashing down monday night, a berm collapsed, storm surge overwhelmed that berm and banks of the hackensack river. one county official says 2,000 people needed to be rescued out of the 19,000 people who lived there. brian todd is there for us this morning, in moonachie, new jersey. what's the latest for us there? >> reporter: soledad, you can see down the street here the fire trucks still responding to the fire east joseph street about a block way with from us. moments ago i was talking to the mayor. thon street we heard a crackling sound, couple of sirens. he ran down there. we ran down there with our cameras and the fire was just very, very intense on the corner right over there to our left. the fire was lapping out over the front entrance over a canopy. smoke pouring out everywhere. first responders got there and busted through doors, bust thud windows. they used an elevated ladder with a platformat the end of it

as a battering ram just to bust through part of the second floor door and window area to try to get to people that were in there. the mayor said he didn't think anybody was in there at the time. we'll go back in a few minutes and get an update on that. but what we're told is that this is a residents used as a small business. it was a small commercial sign out in front. the mayor did say there are people living in that home. so, he was very worried. he indicated that a friend of his was in there, who may have owned the house or may live there. he was very concerned. he was actually help iing out wh the first responders there. it really illustrates the dangers of returning to an area like this after a storm like sandi and afty and after the fl occur. literally 24 hours ago, this place was engulfed in water, five to six feet of water on these streets all around me. people having to be plucked from the roofs of their homes. then today you have this situation. the mayor was -- literally just

finished talking to me about the dangers, about downed power lines. there's a downed power line right behind me. there's gas leaks all over this town. and we're going to find out if one of those things might have caused that fire behind me. this just illustrates the danger of trying to return to your home after a situation like this. officials here are cautioning people, if you don't have to come back, try not to for a while. if you have to come back, be extremely careful. danger can be literally in places you don't see it, soledad. >> people so desperately want to get back into their homes to see the damage. but you're absolutely right. thank you for the update. we appreciate that. john berman has a look at the stories making news today. they want to know who set off homemade explosives outside two staffork county homes in fredericksburg tuesday. no injuries were reported, luckily. u.s. border patrol agent brian terry, the man accused has

entered a guilty plea. manuel osorio-arellanes says he got into a gun battle with border patrol agents, including brian terry, while he and four other men were looking for drug trafficker rob. california surfer fighting for had his life this morning after being attacked by a shark. 25-year-old was bitten on his chest and abdomen yesterday. one of his wounds reported to be a 14-inch gash. other surfers helped to pull him out of the water, load him on a truck and rush him to the hospital. another california surfer less than a week ago was killed in a shark attack off the coast of santa barbara. political controversy rages over something mitt romney said at a primary debate last year. did he suggest fema should be eliminated? listen. >> fema is about to run out of money. some people say do it on a case by case basis and some are saying that maybe there's a

lesson here that the states should take it on. what do you say? >> any time you take something from the federal government and send it back to the states that's the right direction. if you can take it further and send it back to the private sector, that's even better. >> he was asked about this several times yesterday and avoided questions from reporters. >> governor, what should fema's role be? would you eliminate fema if you were president? governor, what would you do? you've been asked 14 times today. what's your response? why won't you answer any questions on it? >> governor romney believe that states should be in charge of emergency management in respond ing to storms and other natural disasters in their jurisdictions. as the first responders, states are in the best position to aid affected individuals and communities and to direct resources and assistance to where they needed most. this includes help from the federal government and fema.

>> isn't that already happening? >> it is. the lead role is the states. i think he was right on what he said. states are the ones who were there. fema can't act unless the governor actual ly makes the cal and requests their assistance. there could be an expanded role for the states. and i'll give you an example. after katrina, new york national guard people went down to the gulf to help. we don't have a mechanism to coordinate interstate help where one state can help the others. it's largely ad hoc. you call up a governor and say if you need something. there is where the states can play a larger role. >> you heard the reporter shouting questions to the governor. he has been asked many, many times and he does not say what his position is on fema. one of the reasons is because he has talked about cutting domestic spending dramatically but has not towelly said here is what would happen to fema. he hasn't spelled out his position on fema.

>> under a romney administration, f mechlt a will be dramatically and drastically cut. and this kind of disaster demonstrates why we need a very strong federal response. the big difference between democrats and republicans. >> you're not looking at it right now. >> there will be billions of dollars poured from the government. that's not an army staffer. >> he said we're going to do away with f mechlt a. >> no, he did not say that. >> i'll tell you what he said. >> it's a very clear statement. >> you are totally misleading. >> i would love to go back to what people actually said. >> yes. go back to what he actually said. >> let's play that first chunk which is what governor romney said originally in the dough bait. >> when you can give the role back to the states it's a good thing. >> giving the role back to the states. >> do not make me get on this table. every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. >> correct.

>> that's what he told john king. he went on. you can go even further. send it back to the private sector. that's even better. i'm not sure what he means by that. instead of thinking in the federal budget what should we keep, what should we cut? we should ask the question what should we keep. >> including disaster relief? governor romney said this. we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. it is simply immoral in my view for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well we'll be all dead and gone before it's paid off. it make nos sense at all. so he is talking specifically about disaster relief that he wants to modify the role of f mechlt a. >> i think he's right in modifying the role of fema. the states have the power now. they should be given more power. >> does that mean cutting fema? >> let me give you one more example. it wasn't fema that weep went to to get $20 billion to rebuild

lower manhattan. it was congress. and -- >> we're talking specifically about fema. >> it has a role of play. >> it's clear that governor romney is saying that they're going to cut fema, dramatically cut fema. i'm not saying it's a good thing or bad thing. >> the big decisions will be on the hill after the election where they'll say we have to pay for these billions of dollars and cut something else. >> governor, is he saying -- it sounds to me like he's saying we need to cut back on fema because we're racking up huge debt. >> i think at that point he's talking generically about $1.3 trillion in debt. he is absolutely right about that. >> we should cut fema? >> we should try to make it more efficient and do it in a way that doesn't cost as much. >> does that mean cutting fema? >> it could mean making it more efficient, but giving a greater role to the states. i don't know. i can't sit there and say do you need 11 press officers at fema or do you need eight?

you do need fema and you do need it to be able to respond to a state's call when there's an emergency like this. governor romney agreeds to that. >> he has not answered that question as reporters pepper those questions. is that a mistake? >> when people are screaming questions at you, are you supposed to stop and answer? >> they do sometimes. >> thank you very much. >> reporters would like that. i don't think anybody advising a campaign would tell their candidate to respond to a screaming question. they put out a statement and that statement says including a continued role of fema. i don't know the exact language. >> i have the exact language. >> includes help from the federal government and fema. you're not talking about abolishing fema when you're saying you're going to have help from the federal government and fema under a romney administration. >> governor, thank you. i appreciate this conversation. it's been an important one.

we've been talking about over the last couple of days. >> animated. >> animated conversation. littlest people who have been misplaced by the storm, newborn babies who have been in the nicu. sanjay gupta will tell us how it went when they tried to get them all to safety. [ woman ] it's 32 minutes to go time, and the candidate's speech is in pieces all over the district. the writer's desktop and the coordinator's phone are working on a joke with local color. the secure cloud just received a revised intro from the strategist's tablet. and while i make my way into the venue, the candidate will be rehearsing off of his phone. [ candidate ] and thanks to every young face i see out there. [ woman ] his phone is one of his biggest supporters. [ female announcer ] with cisco at the center...

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new developments to tell you about in breezy point, queens, where a fire destroyed 80 homes just as hurricane sandy was bearing down on the city. those are the shots from yesterday. my goodness. earlier, there was a strong smell of gas this morning. this is the aftermath. these are pictures from this morning.

utility poles spontaneousiously burst into flames. deb feyerick has the latest for us. >> reporter: the smell of gas has diminished somewhat. no one knew if it was perhaps an open pipe or methane coming up from the cespools. i'm standing on what was somebody's back porch. it's a little bit unstable. the back porch went this entire distance, this entire length. anything that could burn, soledad, basically burned. everything you're seeing here completely incinerated. metal structures. at the height of this -- that's the foundation, where the home basically began. you can imagine this sort of one, two-story bungalows burned down to their foundations. here you can see the electrical wires behind me. all of that, cloerly, has been turned off. there was a fire inspector earlier today, someone who was trying to see the source of what tr

triggered this. one very powerful fire that spread to all of these homes. the estimate, soledad, are between 80 and 100. the folks who live here, that we've spoken to, say it's close to 100 homes. they're trying to figure out what caused the blaze, whether it was a transformer, downed power line or even a powerful explosion from a propane tank. all of that under consideration right now, soledad. people here are going to have a tough time figuring out exactly what to do and how to rebuild. soledad? >> deb feyerick, can you get off that porch now? you're scaring me. that looks completely unstable. >> one thing i do want to point o out, one thing we haven't seen in a very long time. maybe you can see it now. blue sky and sun. having gone about 72 hours without that, pretty nice thing to see today. >> my goodness. a little bit of news for folks there, dealing with a terrible situation. thank you, deb. this is seaside heights, iconic amusement park area, amusement pier damaged by the storm. one thing you might not be able to see so clearly is that sand,

all the sand that has poured into seaside heights left behind in the wake of the storm. wow! if you see the before picture, if you know this area at all, just beautiful and charming and now just absolutely devastated. we are talking about the millions of people without power. sanjay, many people were evacuated, can't get back into their homes. look at these pictures, this is the evacuation at nyu langone medical center. they lost power at the height of the storm. sanjay gupta has a look at it for us, what they did, with the smallest of babies being transported. >> transporting a patient under any conditions is tough. they got a call at 10:30 saying they needed to transfer a bunch of patients over. one baby, emma, her parents are far away. they don't know where she is, where she's been evacuated to. it's a remarkable story about them and also the nurses and doctors who transported her. take a look. monday night, this baby,

13-day-old baby martinez, a preemie, weighing just two poupds, suddenly needed to be urgently transported from langone medical hospital to mt. sinai. challenging under any conditions. these were extraordinary ones. >> it's about as challenging as you can get. >> reporter: we're in front of nyu medical center. mt. sinai is several blocks to the north and four blocks to the west. that's an important point. just over there is the east river. what we now know is that at 7:00 pm there was no water inside that hospital. at 7:45, there was 10 feet. the power started to go out and then the generators failed. and all of a sudden, the patients and the doctors found themselves in a worst case scenario. as for the parents of little baby martinez, they found out the hospital and their daughter would be evacuated when they watched mayor michael bloomberg on tv. shortly after, they lost power and they had no idea where their

baby would be taken. >> i lost power in our apartment. we had no access to the tv, internet, no phone services at home. it was just our cell. >> reporter: just imagine the desperation, the nightmare. their 13-day-old baby rushed through the streets of new york city in the middle of hurricane sandy. while they were stuck at home in new jersey. >> all the bridges were closed and we had no choice but to go back home and just sit and wait for today to get here. and it was a very long night. very, very long night. i have only had one hour of sleep. >> reporter: the doctor who we met earlier is also the man who okayed the transfer. now for the first time he will meet the baby he helped save. >> oh, my goodness. >> thank you so very much. >> that's so hard. you're dad? >> yes. >> wow! it's going to be okay. >> do you have names picked out?

>> her name is emma sophia. >> reporter: neonatal icu, there were so many families there. ten babies in all had been transferred. they all are doing well. the families have seen them for the first time. >> oh, that's brutal. such a great story. thank you, sanjay. >> sure. ♪ ♪ hi dad. many years from now, when the subaru is theirs... hey. you missed a spot. ...i'll look back on this day and laugh. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru.

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thanks in large part to half a dozen german born players. george howell takes a look at this black in america report.

>> mr. gobachev, tear down this wall. >> reporter: the impact of the u.s. military build up in germany during the cold war is still being felt today in an unlikely place, the soccer field. half a dozen sons of american soldiers stationed in germany, born to german mothers, have elected to play for the u.s. national soccer team rather than germany's in the last few years. for some, this decision relates to their racial identity. danny williams and the other five players all have african-american fathers. >> what does it mean to be biracial in germany versus being biracial here in the united states? >> people in germany, they know i'm not 100% german. i am more american than german. >> reporter: jermaine jones was

the first of this wave to join the american soccer team. >> i'm different. when you see me from german people, i'm different. my mom and him when i was young, go their separate ways. for me it was hard, too, to grow up with no dad. >> since electing to play for the u.s., jones has rekindled his relationship with his father. after scoring his first goal for the stars and stripes, jones performed a simple but poignant tribute to his soldier father. >> you gave a salute to your dad. >> yeah. he was calling me after the game. he was like, god, thank you. my mom, my brother, everybody see it. and everybody is part of you. >> a simple gesture of pride, but one rooted in history. george howell, cnn, miami. hi, i'm phil mickelson.

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